“The Lindsey Genius Came Into Play”: The Ironic Way Fleetwood Mac Turned “Dreams” Into a Massive Hit

Fleetwood Mac reached the height of their fame by turning the ups and downs of their band relationships into massive pop hits, and their 1977 No. 1 single “Dreams” is no exception. Stevie Nicks, who had just joined the group two years prior with her musical and romantic partner, Lindsey Buckingham, wrote the career-defining track.

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While it’s hard to imagine the band’s discography without this mellow groove now, Nicks had to fight for the song to remain in the running for their seminal album, Rumours. The song’s transformation from “boring” to a bop is an ironic testament to the band’s ability to set personal differences aside for the sake of making great music.

Stevie Nicks Wrote The Song During Studio Downtime

Fleetwood Mac began recording Rumours at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, in 1976. On a day Stevie Nicks wasn’t needed in the studio, she grabbed a Fender Rhodes piano and found an unoccupied studio belonging to Sly of Sly and the Family Stone. “It was a black and red room with a sunken pit in the middle where there was a piano and a big, black velvet bed with Victorian drapes,” Nicks recalled in a 2005 interview with Blender. “I sat down on the bed with my keyboard in front of me. I found a drum pattern, switched my little cassette player on, and wrote “Dreams” in about ten minutes.”

Inspiration for the song came quickly. Nicks and her partner, Lindsey Buckingham, were actively splitting up just as their band was hitting its stride. “We were on the point of breaking up when we joined Fleetwood Mac,” the singer said. “For the greater good of the band, though, we decided to put our breakup on hold.” “Dreams” was an exploration of Nicks’ feelings toward Buckingham. Now, here you go again, you say you want your freedom. Well, who am I to keep you down? It’s only right that you should play the way you feel it. But listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness.

Sure she had a hit on her hands, Nicks presented the song to the rest of the band, receiving a less-than enthusiastic response. “When Stevie first played it for me on the piano, it was just three chords and one note in the left hand,” Christine McVie remembered. “I thought, ‘This is really boring.’”

The Ironic Way Fleetwood Mac Turned “Dreams” Into a Hit

Despite the band’s lukewarm reception of Stevie Nicks’ “Dreams,” the singer kept pushing for the song to remain in the running for the album. “They weren’t nuts about it,” Nicks said. “But I said, ‘Please! Please record this song. At least try it.’ The way I play things, sometimes, you really have to listen.”

Ironically, it would be Lindsey Buckingham who found a way to arrange the song into a bona fide hit record. “The Lindsey genius came into play,” McVie explained. “He fashioned three sections out of identical chords, making each section sound completely different. He created the impression that there’s a thread running through the whole thing.”

“Dreams” is just one of many examples of Fleetwood Mac successfully compartmentalizing their emotions to create some of the most enduring cuts in rock ‘n’ roll history. Even when the songs included lyrics they hated, like the Buckingham song that Nicks says “Dreams” was a musical response to, the band was able to set their feelings to the side and come together as a musical ensemble. “It was most difficult for Lindsey,” Mick Fleetwood later recalled. “Stevie was the one who pulled away emotionally. He would say, ‘I’m doing this for her and making music, but I can’t have closure.’”

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